“No, it wasn’t.”
“I said, you can tell me the truth.”
“I am, Daddy. Wasn’t no boys this time. It was Courtney.”
“Big fat Courtney?”
“She and her eighth-grade friends. They see me coming home, minding my own business, then they go and say I’m a freak and ask me, how come no one ain’t never seen your momma—you even got one? And Courtney says I got one all right, she went and married a nigger.” She puts her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, Daddy. I hate that word, but that’s what they say.”
George pulls her tight into his arms.
“Don’t you pay them girls no mind, you hear? They just need some proper education. Don’t pay them no mind, and—”
“I did like you told me! I kept walking. But then Fat Courtney smacks me upside my head. I still didn’t say nothing, just kept walking even though the slap hurt. But then she goes on, hitting at me and saying niggers and white folks ain’t got no business making freaks like me for babies and she won’t shut up and…and…”
Holding her arms, George leans back and looks her straight in the eye. “You didn’t. Did you, Punkin’?”
“I didn’t mean to, I swear.” She sniffles, holding back a sob. “I just tried to give her a little shove ‘cause she was all up in my face, spitting when she talked. But she fell down real hard and started cussing at me. That’s when I knew I done wrong, so I held back how mad I was, like you always tell me to, and I didn’t fight back. I just waited till they finish whupping me, then ran home.”
George scrutinizes his daughter. “You hurting anywhere? Anything feel broken?”
“Nah, Daddy. You know they can’t really hurt me—not that bad, anyway.” Her head slightly bowed, she glances up with a little smile he doesn’t like. “But I can hurt them.”
“No, sweetie. Don’t even think about that.”
“Why, Daddy? I ain’t the only one, they do this to all the black kids in town. And just because I’m mixed, different, they do even worse to me. I hate ‘em!”
“Now, Punkin’—”
“I do, Daddy. They’re so mean.”
George takes another look at her bruises and cuts. The bleeding has stopped, the swelling has gone down a little. Still on his knees, he hugs his daughter and nods to the sofa.
“Come on, let’s sit.”
A moment later, she’s leaning into him on the comfortable old couch with its plump stained cushions.
“You know, those mean kids? They all the Lord’s children too, Punkin’. And even though they do some pretty rotten things, they all been made in his image.”
“You saying God’s mean?”
George laughs, something he’s done rarely since her mother got so sullen and quiet.
“Oh, no. No, that ain’t what I mean at all. I’m saying everyone’s got some good in them deep down because we all made in His image. The bad stuff? That’s just garbage we picked up—from our parents, from our bad choices. That’s in our nature too.”
“Is it in my nature, Daddy?” Her eyes meet his, desperately seeking absolution—for what, George cannot fathom. “Am I just like them—you know, deep down?”
Before he has to answer—which he’d rather not—the bedroom door swings open.
“Enough, George!” Lucretia stands there, flaxen hair flowing past her shoulders like sunlight, lovely features marred by her perpetual scowl. “Are you just going to coddle her like that until she becomes as feeble as you?”
“Honey!”
She covers her mouth, whispers, “Sorry,” and retreats into the bedroom, swinging the door shut behind her.
The buzzing hornet in her back pocket causes Lena to check the caller ID. Yuri, her eastern bloc liaison.
“You’re late,” she said.
“Do you know how hard it is to get this stuff out of there and into the States?”
“Not my problem. What’s the current status?”
“Package is en route. One last stop for processing, then they’ll be delivered.”
“They’d better be, Yuri.”
“Have I ever let you down?”
“There’s always a first time—which would, in your unfortunate case, be your last.”
“It’ll be there. Ahead of schedule. I’d stake my life on it.”
Lena smiled. “Your life is always at stake, always has been.”
33
IN ALL HIS GOING TO AND FROM the earth, relatively few things disturbed Nick to the point of actual worry. He’d never acquired that annoying human habit. But now, as he slowly traversed the distance between La Jolla and his next assignment, his physical form was becoming more of a burden to shed. Which was, well, worrisome. What he hated about flying while fully physical wasn’t so much the cold air or the tailpipe fumes on the freeway below but the queasiness and perspiration. With Lena and his assignments he was back in that state of flux, that neither-here-nor-there place.
With an important issue to resolve.
Am I actually going to push Hope back into despair and suicide?
If there were more asinine rules that said he must do whatever he was told with no adequate explanation, perhaps it was time to see if there were indeed real consequences for not blindly obeying them.
Blasted rules.
How had they worked out for him back in Victoria Station?
No.
Don’t get distracted.
Stop overthinking this and complete the assignment.
For no reason other than sheer instinct, Nick looked over his shoulder expecting to find that dark vapor looming about.
Not there. Perhaps he’d be okay.
As he got closer to his third subject, Carlito Guzman, his smartphone buzzed and chimed. The proximity sensor showed him which car on the surface road below was Guzman’s. The text flashed his assignment:
There, stopped at a red light on Mission Valley Road with no other cars in the lanes next to him, Guzman’s car stood awaiting the signal change. But coming from behind without slowing down was another car—a black Cadillac that changed lanes to bring itself right next to Guzman’s window. And from the Cadi’s passenger window a gun protruded, its muzzle aimed right at his head. Guzman had no clue what was about to happen—he appeared to be singing.
Nick made himself invisible, flew down to the street, and stood directly in the path of the bullets.
The popping sound of semi-automatic weapon fire rang out.
Nick altered his molecular density so the few rounds that hit him went blunt at the point, then fell to the asphalt clinking like steel bolts. Cars on both sides of the road blazed out of the danger zone.
The gunman kept firing at Guzman. Nick kept shielding him from the onslaught. Then he tried that trick he’d learned from Lena outside Grand Central Station. Focusing on the oncoming bullets, he absorbed them into the spiritual layers, then sent them out into the sky.
It worked. The Cadillac raced off and took the on-ramp to the freeway. Nick saw Guzman look all over his body, all around the inside of his car, astonished he hadn’t been hit.